Category Archives: Storage

I am an avid hot-tea drinker, averaging 4-6+ cups a day (a tea snob, really, but that’s another post). I’m also a frugal problem-solver. I’ve been making (and carrying) my own tea in travel mugs for a while. But I’m also a little on the clumsy side. And I spill things A LOT. So I needed a Creative Solution for a Spill-Proof Travel Mug.

The Contigo Travel Mug is truly one of my favorite things. People who have them rave about them in cult-like fashion. I have four of the 16 ounce travel mugs; my husband has two. I drink twice as much tea as he drinks coffee.

Why I love Contigo Travel Mugs:

They do not leak

They are dishwasher safe.

The lid is 100% dishwasher safe. No valve to clean or gasket to worry about ruining.

It’s recommended that you hand wash the bottom so that the color doesn’t chip off the mug. Notice the chipped paint on the red mug? That’s from 2 or 3 years in the dishwasher, which doesn’t bother me at all. So putting the whole thing in the dishwasher may affect its aesthetic beauty, but not its function.

They keep hot stuff hot for a really long time.

They also keep cold stuff cold.

Sometimes we like to bring an adult beverage to the pool in the summer… or the park… or wherever… and in the Contigo travel mug offers a multi-faceted Creative Solution on this front.

Amazon has them in a variety of colors, so when I prepare my different varieties of tea, I know which flavor is in which mug. And/or (gasp!) how to tell the difference between my tea and my husband’s coffee. The lids are also color coded, so his coffee stained lid doesn’t ever touch my lips.

I have a few of these Carry-All Caddies… One hangs on a hook by my back door with all the sunscreen and bug spray bottles. When we went camping, we used one to hold the toilet paper, towel, and handsoap as a “bathroom caddy.” They’re just the perfect size and shape.

Like this:

Do you have stuffthat you know you should get rid of? If so, then this Creative Solutionis for you.

My cousin Theresa messaged me the other day: a truck was coming to take her donations, and she asked for any words of wisdom. What I admire about Theresa is that she is really grounded in her reality. So as I offered suggestions for…

How to determine what to keep

What to consider selling

How to develop practices to keep up the donating

…she knew right away what would and wouldn’t work for her. So as I offer my Five Suggestions for Getting Rid of Stuff, feel free to adapt them into your own Creative Solution.

Tip 1: Visualize the Space You Want

Start with the space you have.

What is your current storage solution?

What is working for you?

What is not?

Then, visualize the space you want: less clutter, less stuff you don’t need, more space to give attention to the stuff you really use and love. Let that vision be your guiding principle.

Tip 2: Adult Clothing

When you have limited closet space, it’s a good idea to rotate through a seasonal wardrobe.

I use two 18 gallon plastic Rubbermaid bins – one for my husband and one for me.

When I change seasons, I get excited about being able to wear certainclothes. Changing seasonal wardrobes is a really good time to set things aside to donate. The three criteria that I use are:

If I don’t LOVE it, donate it.

If it doesn’t fit right (and doesn’t have the reasonable expectation of fitting for a long time), donate it.

If I don’t actually wear it, donate it.

One way to determine what you actually DO wear is to turn all your hangers around so the hook is hanging backwards. Once you wear it, turn it right side (hook facing in). After a while, use that “unworn” criteria to prompt you to donate.

If you’re nervous about donating something that you “might need one day,” then get a special “purgatory” container that stores clothes and shoes for no more than 2 years. If you haven’t worn it in 2 years, it’s probably not gonna happen. Get rid of it. In years and years of doing this, I have only regretted one decision (donating a pair of black flats).

I purchased these baskets from Michael’s to increase and organize storage space in my closet. I like how tall they are… lots of stuff can get thrown in there. I also like that they are opaque, so I can’t see the stuff (so my closet looks very neat, clean, and organized). My “purgatory” clothing container is the middle basket on the top shelf.

Tip 3: Kids Clothing

Determine a place for “kids-clothes-that-don’t-fit”so that as they inevitably grow and you notice something not fitting them, it gets removed from the wardrobe rotation and put into the donate (or hand-me-down) pile. Lots of kids will toss what they don’t want to wear (or what doesn’t fit) into the laundry (so it’s not in the closet/bureau as an option). Some kids (like mine, for instance) need to be disavowed of this practice. We also have a bin for “ruined” and “not-my-favorite” clothing that should be used as “art smocks.”

On their closet shelves, I have a variety of bins, including one for outgrown-clothing and another for art smocks. When you constantly have a designated place to store these items, it takes a lot of the prep effort out of donating/off-loading the stuff.

Under-the-bed storage is also an option for donations-in-waiting. We use our under-the-bed storage for the kids’ out-of-season and will-fit-into-this-size-next-growth-spurt clothes. Pro-tip: measure your bed height before buying one of these.

Tip 4: Toys

Before any new toys come in to the house (like Christmas or birthdays), have the kids “make room for new toys” by determining which ones they don’t LOVE. Getting the kids involved with donating their old toys to “children in need” is a good practice of charity to get into. I am also a HUGE fan of Craigslist, buying and selling whatever toys I can at more than half the retail value. So, if the kids have a toy that they’d like to SELL and use that $$ to purchase whatever new/used thing, I’m all for it. I keep a Rubbermaid bin in the garage for Craigslist and garage sale-able items.

Should I sell or can I just donate?” Many people have a hard time with selling items; it creates another time-consuming step. Here’s the thing: do what you need to do. I often have more time than money, so buying and selling used toys works best for me. Find the Creative Solution that works for you. If you struggle with having the time to offload the stuff, consider using one of the donation places that come to you.

When my kids were younger, I would rotate the toys in and out of the playroom. You know how kids go through cycles of interest? They’ll play with it daily and then not touch it for a while. You know they’re not done with the toy, but it’s taking up precious shelf space. So, I would store these toys in clear plastic bins in the attic. Every so often–like every 3 months or so–we’d rotate the toys. Rotating toys keeps interest fresh. My kids would act like it was Christmas morning all over again. And on a daily basis, there was less stuff and more room to play. If a toy was undesired for a couple cycles, it was time to sell or donate it.

Now that they’re older, we still have some toys (like Lincoln Logs) that are only played with every-so-often. We’re not ready to get rid of them, but because they’re not regularly played with, they don’t get precious shelf space in the playroom. Toys that have a place in the playroom are toys that get played with daily. My b-list toys formerly lived in my attic, and are now in a hall closet. The kids understand that we only have “SO MUCH” space, so we can only have “SO MANY” things taking up that space.

What about saving toys for future grandkids?” I tend not to get sentimental about toys, so I haven’t set aside any of my kids’ old Thomas the Trains for future grandkids to play with. We’ve taken pictures for memories. Instead of storing these toys, I prefer to sell them and will happily buy pre-owned toys when that time comes.

If you want to keep certain toys for sentimental reasons, here are some tips:

Be realistic about the actual storage space you have; limit the amount of space you’re willing to give to sentimental-toy-storage.

Long-Term Sentimental-Storage needs to be out of the way so that it doesn’t interfere with short-term, daily life function.

Tip 5: Trash

Throw out any toys that are broken. Throw out tchotchkes – the crap they get as party favors that never gets played with outside of that 15 min ride home post-party. Just trash it. And never look back.

Some parents attack the playroom or bedroom with a big green trash bag while the kids are away or asleep. Most note that kids do not miss the broken/crap toys. Feel empowered to do what you need to do.

However, if you’d like to throw a little Love and Logic into the mix, consider using the enforceable threat: “You can clean the playroom your way [by ___ time/date], or I can clean it my way.” Demonstrate to the kids that there are consequences of not cleaning: if you don’t pick up after yourself, you lose the privilege of choosing what stays and what goes.

What Works for You?

Do you have a Creative Solution for getting rid of stuff? Leave a comment and let us know what it is and why it works for you!

Like this:

Organization, containers, storage of things… these are a few of my favorite things! One of my boys’ favorite things is LEGOs. This Creative Solution offers suggestions for LEGO organization and storage.

Rather than a “formal living room,” we use this space as the kids’ playroom. THIS is where they play with toys. Not in the family room. Not in the bedrooms. For toy storage, we use some old bookcases that line the walls. That’s my starting point.

It is very,very played in. Actively. Always. By my two boys and their friends. Let’s be real: organized does not mean “always clean.” So as I offer these organizational strategies, remember that it’s not going to miraculously translate into a tidy room. What it will be is a room that should be logical to straighten up in about 20 minutes.

Reality check in place, let’s ground ourselves in a few guiding principles:

Location:The goal should be that everything has aplaceso that when it’s time to clean up, there IS a place for everything.

If kids need to dump stuff out to find the thing they’re looking for, unnecessary mess is being made. Ideally, I like to avoid that. So when I suggest “a place for everything; everything has a place,” there is a golden zone of efficiency that we’re aiming for. Less dumping; more playing.

Self-Sufficiency: The kids should be able to easily find what they’re lookingfor and put it away themselves.

Form and Function:The storage containers you use matter. For the most part, I’m going to recommend clearcontainers that are not too tall/deep.

We have a lot of LEGOs. Here’s how we organize them:

Loose Bricks

One of the two ways we organize loose bricks is by color. I bought a bunch of these storage bins at the Dollar Tree a while ago, and have since ripped the lids off each box (I’ll explain why in a moment). Clearshoebox sized containers should also work for this. It’s important that the bins are clear so kids can see what they’re looking for without pulling things out. It’s also helpful to label the name of the contents. In addition to colors, we have one box for wheels and pieces of vehicle (like steering wheels), another for trees and flowers, and another for doors, windows, and glass.

The second way we organize loose bricks is in one big box called “Random LEGOs.” This really helps make cleaning up random bricks on the floor quicker and easier.

Why even bother to sort by color? We have far too many bricks to for us to just have boxes of “Random LEGOs.” Additionally, sometimes a set will fall apart and my older son–the 7 1/2 yr old Master LEGO Builder–will need to rebuild. Or while building a set, one piece will get lost. Have you ever spent an extended period of time looking for a gray piece the size of your pinky finger nail… the one that’s the flat slant… or the square with the u-shape connector that goes sideways, not up and down? Right. That’s why we primarily have color sorting… for FINDING those pieces. Our house rule is once the Random LEGO box gets full, it’s time to sort into colors.

♦ Low sides – makes it easier and more functional for smaller hands to reach in, grab what they want, and build. (Less dumping.)

♦ Large surface area – while you don’t want it to be too deep, you do want as much surface area space as possible. Way easier to find what you’re looking for. Avoid shoe-box sized containers… too small.

The most ideal container I have found for the Random LEGO Box is the Snapware Snap ‘N Stack Sqaure Layer Storage Container, 12-Inch by 12-Inch. I purchased mine at JoAnn’s on one of their regular 50% off sales for $17.49. It comes with one lid and three latching containers. (We use the lid and the other two latching containers for keeping their LEGO train sets safe from “rough play” when not in use.) Like I said, we intentionally limit the Random Box to one bin because that’s the Creative Solution that works for us. Maybe all you need is one of these for three bins of randomness?

Pro-tip: if you’ve got regular LEGO builders, do not try to store the lid on the Random LEGO Box. The kids will rip it off and leave it on the floor. It gets in the way.

LEGO Sets

We have lots of sets. I’ve got two boys who have basically requested LEGO sets for every gift for every holiday from everyone for the past four years… and spent their own money on sets… and have sold old toys to buy sets… My boys play with their sets in-tact. Some kids enjoy building and destroying. Mine enjoy building and playing with the buildings. It doesn’t matter which ethos your kid employs. Just organize around their preference.

When a set is not being used,store it on a shelf. We have added a layer of shelves to the bookcases to make better use of the unnecessary “tall” space.

We have also hung random shelves at varying heights for additional “safe” storage.

We currently have over 3300 building instructions available online which date back to sets packed in 2002…

To search, enter 4 or 5 digit set number or a keyword e.g. airplane, car or hero.

You don’t have to know the set number… just enough descriptive words for you (or your kid) to recognize the set through their website.

For us, sets break all the time, and it’s a lot easier for my 7 1/2 yr old to be able to grab the instructions book when he needs it. So alas, we areusing them and I muststore them. First I stored all the books in one box. Now we are at three categories: City, Creator/Technic, and Star Wars/Ninjago/Characters. We have them in three open lid bins.

A side note about the instruction manuals and LEGO customer service. If you’re ever missing a piece, you can find the piece part number in the back of that manual where it lists all the pieces. Then call customer service or use the website. Sometimes they’ll mail it out for free. Sometimes you’ll need to pay a nominal fee.

Mini-Figs

My kids play with mini-figs like they’re action figures. They. Love. Them. We have so many that get played with so regularly that they need a place to live.

I am just using an old box that possibly had a Melissa and Doug toy in it years ago. The separate compartments might be good in theory (if your kid is like me and likes organizing… my boys could care less about that, so they all just get thrown in together). But what’s most important is that the edge of the container is only a couple inches high. The kids can see what they’re going for, which means less dumping on the floor.

Ideas Evolving to Meet Needs

My organization of LEGOs has definitely evolved over time as our collection has grown. Deciding how to adapt these ideas to work for you begins with assessing:

What’s your starting point

What’s your goal

My goal of a clean playroom needed to be adapted to become a playroom that could be cleaned (or significantly straightened) in 20 minutes. Every time we encountered an obstacle to that goal, we work on finding another Creative Solution in response (hang another shelf, find another box, etc). It has evolved, and keeps evolving.

With that said, I hope you find a Creative Solutionthat works for you!